Down is up and up is down at every level in this world

Faye Voshell at The American Thinker examines another reason besides Putin's geo-strategic designs for strained relations between Russia and post-America/ It seems that on a cultural level there's been a big switcheroo:

At the core of the continued antagonism between the West and Russia is the breathtaking shift in ideologies that have occurred in America during the Obama administration and in Russia during Putin’s ascendance to power. 

While Russia has embraced a spiritual revival that includes the re-establishment of the ancient Russian Orthodox Church and its Christian values; and while Putin is committed to Russia the nation, the Obama administration has committed itself to an anti-Christian ideology characterized by extreme aggression toward the majority Christian community and its values; and has its gaze set on a radically secularist global world order that disregards nation states.

In brief, there has been a nearly complete role reversal since the 1970s, with some leaders of the West now devoted to a radical secularism that marginalizes and excoriates the Christian majority of the United States in systematic ways once unthinkable.

For example, rejecting the Christian concept of what it means to be human beings created in the image of God, the Obama administration has committed itself to the transgender movement, which at heart represents a view of the human being so extreme as to go against observable and scientific reality. Transgenderism has devoted itself to a concept of “equality” so dangerously reductionist that it threatens the very foundations of Western civilization. 

The sexual revolution now spearheaded by transgenderism rejects the binary nature of humanity, and thus is far more radical than the French and Bolshevik Revolutions, which at least recognized the distinctions between men and women. It is at heart nihilistic and anarchical, as it jettisons reality and strikes at any and every foundation for law and order influenced by Christianity. Total destruction of everyone and everything that stands in the way of final annihilation of Western Christian foundations is the goal of the sexual revolutionaries. A brave new global order presently only vaguely imagined is then to be built on the ruins of formerly Christianized nations -- the very concept of nations being anathema to the new revolutionaries.

President Obama is wholly committed to the transgender movement.  In fact, one could term him a proselytizer in chief for the transgender cause.

What rapprochement is possible between Russia and the West while such a radical viewpoint is embraced by leaders of Western democracies?  What hope is there for diplomatic agreements between America and Russia when the current administration of the United States, and quite possibly a future administration under Hillary Clinton, is committed to a utopian world order that requires the death of nation states and the eradication of any Christian framework for law and order? Shall these radical notions be the standard for Russia, just as she is committing herself to rediscovery of her national and religious heritage?

No wonder there is talk of a new Cold War when there is such a radical ideological reversal.

She goes on to point out that there is a significant sentiment among the Russian populace to prevent the kind of nihilism with which cultural rot has infected the Western soul from taking hold there. It does have a foothold, witness the antics of the punk band Pussy Riot, but there is resistance to its further encroachment.

How ironic that the less democratic of the two world powers is the one yearning for a revival of the faith that enlivened so much of the world prior to the present age.

It's important to see Putin as a Russian first, which is why he gives the nod to his countrymen's desire for a faith-permeated society.  The Most Equal Comrade, by contrast, sees himself as a World Citizen first, and would just as soon Christian faith wither and blow away in post-America.